Tourists explore green ricefields in Lam Binh District, Tuyen Quang Province (Photo: VNA)

The highlight of the programme is the third International Hot-air Balloon Festival, which will take place at Nguyen Tat Thanh Square with 22 hot-air balloons flown by pilots from Australia, China, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand, the UK, and Vietnam.

In addition to admiring colourful balloons in the sky, festival goers can experience performances by DJs and join exchange activities with participating pilots from April 28 to 30.

The Tourism Year will also include a fair with 100 booths displaying Tuyen Quang’s tourist products and products of local craft villages; and a conference on promoting investment, trade, and tourism in the province's ethnic minority-inhabited and mountainous areas.

New tourist products introducing My Lam Hot Mineral Spring, a women’s football tournament, and the national badminton club championship 2024 will also be launched on the occasion.

The Tourism Year programme aims to advertise Tuyen Quang Province’s tourism potential, advantages, and cultural values, thus attracting more international and domestic visitors and investors to the locality and contributing to developing tourism into a major economic sector of the province.

In 2023, Tuyen Quang greeted 2.6 million visitors and earned 3.2 trillion VND from tourist activities. This year, the province aims to welcome more than 2.7 million tourists with total tourism revenue of 3.6 trillion VND.